I write, occasionally

This weekend I went to Mount Vernon for Kari's friend's (Morgan) wedding. Kari made me go to the rehearsal which was sooooo lame. I left halfway through and went to the mall. Then on saturday we went to the wedding. Let me just say that I am definitely not ready to get married. Seriously, I can't believe how the people act at them. I just do not act the way that you're supposed to at a wedding. I don't let ladies go first, I don't grab a lady's hand when she's about to sit down or go up a step or something. I don't hold hands, and I especially don't look a girl in the eyes for 10 straight minutes while holding hands. If I ever get married, I'm gonna have like 50 groomsmen so that I can just hang out with them up front and not …

As most of you know (due to my mood and constant whining) I lost my 120gig Hard Drive 2 weeks ago (pictures, videos, professional work, etc). We tried everything that we could think of to get the data back. Minnis helped me a lot through the whole process. I'd pretty much lost all hope, nothing we tried would recover my files. Well yesterday we started this program called Clone Maxx to try to copy all data from one HD to another HD. It ran extremely slow, over night for 11 hours and 35 minutes.

Well, when I got to work this morning I went straight to the PC, and the monitor said, "PC Inspector Clone Maxx Complete." (This is about the time that my pants almost got soiled). So I mounted a hard drive with win2k on it, put my new …

This weekend Nathan and I went to Minneapolis for a couple Heely demos. For the most part it was pretty fun, but it was also sort of annoying. The roads around the Twin Cities suck... bad. Seriously, 35w does not mean 35 west, wtf. And it sucks even more that the people living there can't give you good directions to anything.

Friday night we decided to go to Mystic Lake (one of the biggest casinos in the midwest). The guy at the front desk of our hotel gave us directions that got us completely lost. It took us over an hour to get somewhere that was 15 minutes away... It made us both annoyed, frustrated, and pissed off. Once we got there we stayed for about 30 minutes... I've never really gone to a casino other than to eat... …

So I had this hard drive crash... here are the earlier details.

First of all, Minnis rules. He's been trying a bunch of things with my HD today that I haven't thought of. After being unsuccessful with Knoppix and the linux box, we dropped it into a win2k machine and ran powermax, which is some diagnostic software that maxtor put out. Anyway, they gave me a diagnostic code (de67a279) and told me to visit their site. So I visit it, check out the warranty services, enter my serial number and find that my drive is under warranty until 8/11/04, w00000000t.

So they are sending me a free 120 gig HD. We also ran a chkdsk and saw a pretty good list of files on the drive... So at least something is getting read from the disk. I still …

Apple put out this insanely awesome mp3 player called an "iPod." I bought this brilliant device last June. It is so handy because you can put hours and hours of music on it and take it anywhere. I took it skating, I took it to work, I plugged it into my stereo at home, etc.

It also rules when you start to come to the conclusion that this dope device is the reason for a sh*tload of data loss. For example, that HD of mine that crashed last week... I'm pretty sure that's due to my ipod. Also, when I backed all that stuff up on my ipod... I can't get it back off. It either locks up my computer, locks up the ipod, or a combination of both. The only way out of this is to hold down the power button on my PC. SWEET! so maybe it's my …

About a month ago ABC's Good Morning America advertised a "Cool Cubicle Challenge" that encouraged people to send in short videos of their cubicles. Basically you were supposed to show them why your cubicle is fun/cool. Obviously, Kevin and I jumped on the idea. We have pretty cool cubes, it was a chance to get on national TV, and we like to make videos.

First I went to Cedar Rapids and helped Kevi film his video, which turned out dope after the editing. Then my cousin Anthony and I filmed my video, which also turned out decent.

We sent them in, hoping that we would both get on GMA, even if we didn't win... we just wanted a second or 2 on national TV. So, about a week after submitting them, we found this on GMA's website, haha. …

Lately I've been really heavy into organizing and backing up all my pictures and video. I recently bought a fireproof safe to keep miniDV tapes and picture CDs in. I also have copies of most picture CDs at work. Last week I even went and had all of my old advantix film rolls converted to CDs (22 rolls - $120). Then, over the course of an evening I organized them all into folders in chronological order on my PC (just like all my other pics are organized). The next step was to buy a scanner this week and scan the rest of my pictures. Then I'd make a couple backups of everything and store them in different locations.

You always hear of people "losing all their memories in a fire" ... I don't want this to happen. So everything is …

This weekend was pretty laid back, booo. Friday night, Jason, Jodi, Nathan, Andy and I went to the Funny Bone. The comedian was pretty good... he offended a lot of people, which is awesome... "racism is gay" haha.

Saturday, kari came over for the Cornell 150th Anniversary Gala at the Des Moines Country Club. It wasn't a rockin party or anything but they didn't ask alumni for money once! ...I was surprised by that. Lots of good food, drinks, and a nice video. There were less than 10 people there that went to school with me (everyone else was old), but it was still decent.

My clie broke while trying to get a wi-fi signal there, which is sad. I can't figure out this error at all: DataMgr.c, Line:9524, Index out of range. I only …

Nordstrom department stores started selling heely's which is a big deal because that's a huge account for us to get. So HSL asked if I would be willing to go to Chicago to do a couple Demos at the stores up there. I was orginally supposed to meet Zach and Aaron there to do demos, but they couldn't make it. So instead, Kari went with me, and I did the demos by myself.

Anyway, Chicago was really fun again. Friday night, Kari and I ate at Rock Bottom. It was fun to see the differences between the restaurants in Des Moines and Chicago. The menus were pretty much the same, the beers were pretty much the same but had different names, however everything was priced differently. For Kari and I to each have 1 mug it was $11, where here it …

10:09|<xy_goat> all you gotta do is start linking to some blogs
10:09|<xy_goat> like in a post be like "harper sucks" and link to me

I'm going to see this suck-face this weekend. plus i'm doing demos for heely's. it'll be fun.

Kill Hannah and HIM are touring together, which rules so much. I want to go to one the shows soooo bad. Kari and I can get plane tickets pretty easily, so we were even considering flying to NY, LA, or even Philadelphia to see them together.

But every stop on the tour is on a bad date. I'm either doing demos, working, or going to weddings. The closest that they're going to be is Chicago... which is still a 5 hour drive. It's on a Sunday night... the same Sunday that I have a Soap shoe demo in Iowa City. I also have only 1 more vacation day.

Stupid stupid Iowa. Why can't Des Moines be bigger.... or even Omaha, or Minneapolis.

I wrote a new picture system for the site. It's pretty dope. All I really have to do now is put pictures into the folders and it automatically parses through them and prints them all out. It doesn't use a database or anything. If you hover over the thumbnails they change to color too, w00t.

I also added a few pictures while I was working on it.

Kevin got some tickets to go to the Tesla show in Des Moines tonight. However, the person he was going with sold out, so I decided that I'd go to the concert with him. ...Holy 80s.

Everyone there was seriously stuck in the 80s (MAYBE early 90s). Kevin and I were within the youngest 3% there. The only people younger than us were there with their parents, haha.

Here are a few things to note about the night: big hair, mullets, nascar hats, fist pumping, bangs, receding hairlines, air guitar, dude with stomach hanging out of shirt, shoulderless pink shirts with fishnet tights, etc.

however, one guy seriously "LOVES my show." he told me, haha. I'M NOT BAM!

one more thing to note, Amy Smart has now taken the lead as my biggest …

So, tonight I ordered a 14" Sausage/Mushroom pizza from Papa John's. I was pretty hungry, so I ended up eating 4 pieces. But a 14" pizza isn't that big... so that's actually not that much. Anyway, afterwards I was curious as to how bad for you pizza is. I looked up the nutritional information at Papa John's website. At first I was like, "whoa that's actually not bad at all."

But then I noticed that 1 serving was 1 slice. So then I multiplied everything by 4. Here is the breakdown (percentages based on a 2,000 calorie diet):

Calories	1344g	(67%)
Fat	56g	(86%)
Sodium	3576g	(149%)
Carbs	152g	(51%)

Man, it's a good thing I ate subway for lunch.

Last night after work, I drove to Mount Vernon (2 hour drive) to meet Kari and Steph. Then we drove to the Green Room in Iowa City to see Heiruspecs and my friend Luke (aka know1, aka aeon gray) perform.

Anyway, Luke was performing with Angle and DJ Wickedawesome (a friend of theirs). Man, it was the best soft focus show I've seen. I've only seen like 3 before then... but still. It was the DJ's first live performance, but he sounded really good. Luke and Angle also sound incredibly good together.

After that Animosity went on, who was good. It sorta matched some of the psychopathic records style music that I listen to, but his set was a little to long. Especially for an opener. Right after him there was this DJ that was …

Haha, my life rules. I have no idea who this kid is.

Name: michael
Email: [email protected]
Phone:
Business:

derek you are a peice of sh*t. you ruin cool things by making them corporate and lame. i hope you sleep well on a bed of money knowing that you sold-out the kids. kill yourself you corporate whore.

email recieved from the Truespin-media.com contact form.

w00t, I got my duo today.. It boots and everything works perfect. The next step is finding a mac that I can use to apple talk to it. otherwise, I could setup a linux box and figure out how to use apple talk through that. Harper found me a good site to help me with that, here. It will definitely come in handy.

On another note, this is really really funny.

Today, I built my own mini segway. It rules so much. Check out the pictures of the yellow guy riding it around my office.

segway 1 - segway 2 - segway 3 - segway 4

Last night on ebay i won an auction for the dopest laptop ever. Seriously, when it came out, it was $3,750, and I got it for $70.44, including shipping.

Here are the specs:
PowerBook Duo 280c
Codename: Yeager
CPU: Motorola MC68LC040
CPU Speed: 33 MHz
Bus Speed: 33 MHz
Data Path: 32 bit
ROM: 1 MB
RAM Type: unique
Minimum RAM Speed: 70 ns
Onboard RAM: 4 MB
RAM Slots: 1
Maximum RAM: 40 MB
Level 1 Cache: 8 kB
Screen: 8.4" active matrix
Maximum Resolution: 8 bit 640x480/16 bit 640x400
Slots: modem, Dock (152-pin PDS)
Hard Disk: 240 MB
Serial: 1
Audio Out: mono 8 bit
Audio In: mono 8 bit
Speaker(s): mono
Microphone: mono
Gestalt ID: 103
Power: 25 Watts
Weight: 4.8 lbs.
Dimensions: 1.5" H x 10.9" W x 8.5" D
Minimum OS: …

Ok, cell phone decisions are some of the hardest and most stressful decisions that i have to make.

I really want to be able to be able to have the best possible communication options that I can get. First I was going to get that Danger Sidekick, which is still dope, but there are things about it that i don't like.

New Plan: 2 devices, bluetooth, and wifi
1. Upgrade my Clie to the UX50, which has wifi and bluetooth
2. Buy a bluetooth phone (i.e. Sony t610)
3. Use phone as modem through bluetooth when wifi isn't present.

I think that this is the best and most powerful combination that I could get right now. Next step: deciding which company/plan to go with... or changing my mind again.